Couple rob, abduct, tie up off-duty firefighter

Police find man 22 hours after he accepted ride

July 01, 1999|By Peter Hermann | Peter Hermann,SUN STAFF

An off-duty Baltimore firefighter who accepted a ride from passers-by at a city street corner Tuesday afternoon was robbed at gunpoint and then bound, gagged and left on the floor of a vacant rowhouse for 22 hours, police said.

Michael Wiggins, 47, who works out of the McMechen Street firehouse in Madison Park, was treated for minor injuries at Mercy Hospital. He was found yesterday after a woman claiming to be one of the abductors called police.

Agent Ragina L. Cooper, a police spokeswoman, said Wiggins was waiting for a bus about 2: 30 p.m. at Eutaw and Franklin streets when he accepted a ride from a man and woman in a black Ford Taurus.

Wiggins told police that moments after he got in and sat in the front seat the male driver pulled a handgun, robbed him of an undisclosed amount of money and then drove to a vacant rowhouse in the 1700 block of Llewelyn Ave. on the city's east side.

There, police said, his abductors tied him up, put a gag in his mouth and left him on the floor overnight. Police would not say what was used to confine Wiggins. It was not clear why Higgins accepted the ride.

About 12: 30 p.m. yesterday, Cooper said, a police emergency operator got a call traced to a pay phone in the 1600 block of Harford Road, eight blocks from where Wiggins was found. She said a woman told police that she and a man had abducted a man the day before and left him in the rowhouse.

An officer drove to the house and found Wiggins on the floor. "The officer could hear him moaning inside," Cooper said. Police said that officers drove around the area from where the call came but could not find the woman. No arrests had been made last night.